Indian banks are fundamentally changing how they utilize employee resources as digital banking adoption accelerates. According to reports from NDTV Profit, Punjab National Bank has reported that more than 95% of customer transactions are now conducted digitally, with the bank sanctioning every second loan through its digital channel, up from every third loan in the previous quarter. This digital shift is creating significant capacity changes across the banking sector.
State Bank of India is actively redeploying branch staff toward sales and upselling activities. As reported by NDTV Profit, SBI Chairman Challa Sreenivasulu Setty confirmed during the bank's Q4 FY26 earnings call that a large number of transactions had moved to alternate channels. The bank reported that 66% of new savings accounts originated through Yono in FY26, with the new version crossing four crore registrations within three months of launch, taking total users to around 10 crore. SBI is using this workforce capacity to train branch employees for sales and upselling roles.
HDFC Bank is implementing a different approach by moving capacity from backend operations to customer-facing roles. According to NDTV Profit, the bank's management indicated that backend capacity will be moved to the front end, releasing capacity at the customer-facing end to engage with customers and generate business momentum. This strategic shift aims to reduce turnaround times and backend capacity requirements while enhancing customer service capabilities.
Axis Bank is leveraging technology to support employees with real-time insights and personalized recommendations. As reported by NDTV Profit, the bank's Siddhi platform provides more than 90,000 employees with real-time customer insights and personalized recommendations across more than 30 cross-sell journeys covering deposits, cards, loans, investments, and remittances. The bank has observed an approximately 30% uplift in key metrics including term-deposit bookings, mutual-fund transactions, and credit-card sales. Axis Bank has built comprehensive digital journeys across multiple banking products including savings accounts, salary accounts, current accounts, and various loan products.
The disclosures from major banks demonstrate different but complementary responses to the digital transformation. According to NDTV Profit, while SBI is moving staff toward sales and upselling, HDFC Bank is focusing on capacity redistribution from backend to frontend operations, and Axis Bank is providing employees with technology-enabled customer insights. As routine transactions move online, the role of frontline employees is evolving from transaction processing to customer engagement, cross-selling, and relationship management.
